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Topic: What motivates you to move on~? (Read 6010 times)

Due to work, friends, games, anime and family, I have been noticing that game programming time is reduced to zero minutes.. I was wondering how does a programmer get the motivation to keep moving on. I just feel that there are times where I feel that the day does not have enough hours in it. To make things worse is that my job is computer related, so by the time I get home, I really do not feel like typing anything on the keyboard... I made this post because I wanted to know what goes on inside the mind of a professional~

PS: If EgonOlsen is reading this thread, I wanted to know if the source for the deformed plane is available for studying. I am referring to the program that uses IVertexController. The screen capture that you supplied was http://www.jpct.net/pics/vertexcontrol.jpg Thanks Egon~!

Well, I am on the same situation, thats why I decided to left my game apart by now, becausse when classes began I wont have anytime. I asked a friend from Argentina to complete my game (of course paying him), I guess that I can buy that effort and later do improvements by myself when the game is 100% done.

The motivation for me was to make someting that noone in this coutry could do before, create interest on this kind of development and maybe get a sellable software.

I do not mind if someone helps me out, but in a way, I do not feel that its right, plus I do not know anyone in real life that would want to continue after me... I wanted to know how is everyone else coping with such a calamity... I am sure that I am not the only one whose life doesn't revolve around game programming, but would want it to...

Anyway the motivation is different for each one. Just look to technopolis, apta karga or paradroidz. Look the date of the begginig of the projects. They have took many effort and time to achieve on that, and are still fixing and improving. I remember that when I first registered some years ago technopolis was already begun.

Are you trying to buikd a game to sell? just doing because you woke up and wanted? you have always dreamt on doing it? whatever is your reason you must sacrifice more time for achieving on that. if you dont have to spend all your time on it you can buy other people work, contract someone else to work for you or ask a friend to aid you.

I did managed the calamity getting incentives like a LAN Arena offered me to sopnsor my game with publicity for free. or friends saying: Oh you are doing a game, great finish it quickly to play it. or things like tha.

BTW: Where are you from? I laways thought you were a woman, are you a man?

Hee hee... I thought that the rabbit plushie on the picture would have given a hint, but I am a girl and living at New Orleans, Louisiana, North America... The reason why I wanted to make a game in the first place was to make my friends happy and also because I THOUGHT that I could have done better than some commerical quality games... So far, I am proving myself to be wrong...

If game development is in you, you'll continue to learn new things, study game dev, read books on game programming, graphics, AI, and/or whatever else. My oppinion is, you can't really force yourself to program games - well maybe if you do, it won't last long enough.

What motivates me? The fact that I love game programming and 3D graphics modelling, and one day, I want to become a professional game developer; it's my dream. So, look out for my name as the newest member of EA Games' developers team! Hehe, just kidding.

I had the same questions for years. Now that i am a post graduate student, i found a solution in including some part of game-oriented programming in my research project and so I can learn game programming while I m am working. My project is more oriented on multi agent programming but i decided to add some 3D to represent virtual persons. The problem is now that i have much more issues to deal with and sometime i have to stop working on 3D (I am far from the quality of Egon or Rolz for example) and focus on the research aspect of my multi agent system , which is also fun to work on.So my point is to try to find bridges between your day occupation and your interest for game programming, just for trying techniques, improving them and also because it is more motivating to do something that you like to do .

Of course it is not always easy and it may necessite you more work than the basic project and if you have to deal with deadlines, it can be risky. But at least, you can have new aptitudes when the project is finished.

Don t give up and good luck

PS: And yeahhh good sword :twisted: Have you seen the movie Shinobi (released in asia in 2005 i think -->Bittorrent) If not, i think you should like it.

PS: If EgonOlsen is reading this thread, I wanted to know if the source for the deformed plane is available for studying. I am referring to the program that uses IVertexController. The screen capture that you supplied was http://www.jpct.net/pics/vertexcontrol.jpg Thanks Egon~!

Couldn't find it anywhere ATM. But it was just a plane which's vertices were pertubed by an IVertexController using a simple. damped sin/cos-function. Oh wait...it could be this one: http://www.jpct.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=58

And to answer the question of motivation: You can't keep the same level of motivation during the whole project when doing a spare time project IMHO. For me, working on jPCT and Paradroidz or some other small Java-things is just fun. I'm doing Java programming the whole day long (mostly middle-tier and JSP development), but that's not giving me the same reward as this spare time work does. When other people are watching TV or reading a book, i code some nonsense. That, plus the fact that i tend to get things finished before starting new ones drives me forward. But after all, it's still a hobby. It shouldn't consume all your time. That's why there are weeks, sometimes even months where i'm not coding a single line for jPCT or Paradroidz apart from the support that i'm giving here in the forums.

It has been soo long since I have touched my projects as well, so I am really scared of losing interest... Interestingly, my work is all about JSP coding, which to me, is totally different from Java coding or game programming... Its just not the same~!!!! I do not get the thrill of accomplishment, but yet everyone, around me at work, think that its the JSP is the greatest thing in the world.

Anyway~!!! Thank you everyone would have replied to this thread... Its not quite a JPCT serious thread, but I am sure that everyone has experienced this once in a while... I hope to someday get out of the slump, but for now, I will just probably reply to random posts here and getting inspired....